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The Fairly OddParents Review/Transcript
Wanda: 'Oh sweetie, we didn't deserve you. You abused our magic, took out Archduke Ferdinand and plunged the world into World War I! ['Caption: Fairy Godkids are allowed to assassinate people. This is canon.] (Intro) This one...is just tragic. Of the two big Nickelodeon shows, this is the one that I watched a lot more back in the day. At a certain point, it was probably what I watched more than anything else on the network, and it would be for several years. For a while, The Fairly Oddparents ''was a joy to watch. With the exception of a few episodes like "It's a Wishful Life!". If you haven't been following my reviews, the level of quality or interest of ''Fairly Oddparents hasn't really stuck around. Over the past decade, Fairly Oddparents ''was on a downward spiral, getting worse and worse, until eventually it collapsed in on itself. One of the most '''popular '''shows on the network was thrown onto the Nicktoons Network; the place where Nicktoons '''go to die'. And then it was unceremoniously ended, without any fanfare or even an actual finale. The Fairly Oddparents ''had a run of ten seasons and was on the air for about sixteen years. With...the expected ups and downs, and I'm gonna try to get through as many of them as possible in a ten-minute video. No matter what you think of this show, sixteen years is impressive. Actually, it's even longer than that, ''The Fairly Oddparents ''originally had a series of shorts that dated back to '''1998'. So...almost twenty ''years. Since most of these shorts were remade into later episodes, I didn't bother watching them for this retrospective. They are most of the same as the later episodes. Cosmo had a different voice actor and sounds much more..."pleasant" for lack of a better word, but the animation is a lot cruder. After watching episodes like "The Big Fairy Share Scare" and "Certifiable Super Sitter," going back to season 1 is an...experience let's say. Your experience with ''Fairly Oddparents ''is going to be completely different depending on what season you pick. Flanderization hit this show '''hard. Harder than any other show that I've ever seen. It went twice as far as The Simpsons ''in '''half-time. If you don't remember season 1, let me tell you some of the things that it changed: Vicky was just a mean babysitter. She was not a supervillain. Timmy's parents were apathetic and they could be crass, but they actually had a maturity about them, and behaved like, you know, adults. Wanda could be just as stupid as Cosmo in some episodes. Oh yeah, the show also had a bunch of great characters. Norm the Genie, Rem Buxaplenty, Chester and A.J., Britney Britney, Chip Skylark, and the pixies. And a bunch of other staples that I don't think even got a mention in season 10. But I'm getting ahead of myself. No matter where you are in the show, it is about the same thing. Fairly Oddparents ''is about Timmy Turner. Despite being just your average kid that no one understands, he has a miserable life dealing with cruel teachers, apathetic parents, difficult bullies, and even an evil babysitter. So he's awarded fairy godparents, which are there to grant his every wish and generally take care of him. This isn't a '''new '''premise for a cartoon. There have been plenty of shows about kids fulfilling their supernatural desires, either through magic like say with ''Wish Kid, or through science like Dexter's Laboratory. It allows the show to tackle all '''the typical cartoon plots, like cloning, body swapping, shrinking to a microscopic size, et cetera. Honestly, just from the description alone, it's hard to see why ''Fairly Oddparents ''ever became this "dominant force" on Nickelodeon. In a way it kinda sounds like every other cartoon ever made. It's a formula that's been in use for a very long time. ''Fairly Oddparents strength came from the creativity that it applied to the cliches. Some jokes have been told to us so long that we've kinda forgotten that they...were jokes. Fairy godparents in media before Fairly Oddparents ''were usually presented as these "wise, caring" characters, who "know it all" and were always looking out for their ward. This was before ''Shrek 2. The fairly oddparents are...more than a bit dense, and they certainly weren't an Arnold Schwarzenegger or a Goodfellas ''parody before this. If there's one thing that I can call prime ''Fairly Oddparents, it would be charming. The characters each had strong personalities. Every single one of them was memorable. A.J. wasn't just "the smart character." Chester wasn't just "the poor character." Every single character had some memorable quips and moments, and they almost always made some kind of impression. That's why it became so painful '''later on when they started getting shafted as they did. How could anyone ''ever forget Chip Skylark and his singing? [Caption: I legit think the only people to forget Chip Skylark were people who worked on the show] If you grew up with the name "Vicky" in the early 2000s, I-I feel so fucking sorry for you, because you probably had to hear "Icky Vicky" more times than you care to admit. Oh, that reminds me. The music in this show was really damn good. And I'm not just talking about the theme song that has embedded itself into my brain. I'm talking about the ''big ''musical numbers that this show would often have. These are things that I would listen to on their own. Fairly Oddparents ''had not one, but two musical TV movies. And both of them are '''awesome'. Some of the best '''episodes of the show. Although "Fairy Idol" might be hard to find nowadays because the Norm episodes tend to be...not sold? I'm not entirely sure why, maybe it's contract disputes, but, that's not relevant here. One thing that immediately sets apart prime ''Fairly Oddparents ''from burnout ''Fairly Oddparents ''is consistency. I'm not saying that all of the old episodes are good; they've had some stinkers. I've even reviewed two of them. It's that the old episodes really took its world-building seriously. This show isn't ''high fantasy ''or anything, you're never gonna find "Fairly Oddparents Silmarillion," but it does have Da Rules. The first few seasons took Da Rules '''very seriously. There were a few rules that were consistent that kept getting in Timmy's way. You couldn't split up true love, you couldn't put someone in actual danger, you couldn't use magic to compete in a competition, you couldn't counterfeit. In a show with magic, it's important to have these rules. Because, when you have a kid who can wish for '''''anything, you can get him out of any ''situation and that immediately kills tension. The problem is that...thinking up scenarios where these few limitations keep applying is difficult. And towards the end...the show got very, very lazy. Specific rules were made up completely out of the blue that only appeared for one episode. Cosmo and Wanda got their wands stolen in increasingly forced and stupid ways. Towards the end, they started breaking even the most major rules, and they let adults see and even talk to the fairies. Hell, in one episode, Crocker ''directly talks to Cosmo. You know, Crocker. The character whose main gimmick is that he's hunting and always on the lookout for fairies. When it comes to Spongebob, there's some disagreement as to where the seasonal rot started. Some people say the movie, some people say "Atlantis Squarepantis," some people say season 6 as a whole. Everyone agrees as to where Fairly Oddparents ''jumped the shark. The season 6 premiere, "Fairly OddBaby." Now the special wasn't really bad in and of itself. It did have Cosmo getting pregnant, and considering that this wasn't too far after the time that Carl Wheezer got pregnant, it made a lot of people think that there was let's say, someone at Nickelodeon with a particular interest in male pregnancy. Now, the special itself isn't really that bad, it isn't the greatest thing ever, and there were some episodes afterwards that I really did like. Like uh, "Bad Heir Day." Where Crocker essentially becomes a surrogate father to Poof. That's probably one of my favorite episodes of the show. But "Fairly OddBaby" started a spiral...that ''Fairly Oddparents ''never really recovered from. Adding a baby to the show is often done in desperation, when you're out of ideas for characters who exist already. This happened to ''Rugrats ''before it. The problem is that adding a baby to a show '''NEVER '''fixes it. '''EVER'. This is because babies do not have any character. They make bodily noises, cause chaos, and shit themselves. This is not a character. This is a plot device. And honestly, Poof himself made far less of an impact than any other baby character that I've ever seen. No, I'm not exaggerating. And because Poof failed to fix the problem, the show kept adding in more characters to attempt to, and all of them were pretty much universally disliked. First there was Foop, Poof's anti-fairy. Foop broke continuity just by arriving on the scene. For starters, literally every single anti-fairy was called "Anti-Cosmo" or "Anti-Wanda" or "Anti-Jorgen." Nope, this one has its name spelled backwards because Fairly Oddparents ''had given up on ''caring ''about consistency. Then came Sparky. The only thing funny about Sparky is that ''Fairly Oddparents ''literally made ''The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show ''without any sense of self-awareness. '''Poochie: '''Wiggity wiggity word up! Rock on, party! Sparky was "walking chaos with attitude" and was probably the greatest mistake that this show had ever made. He's honestly one of the most annoying characters that I've ever come across in animation. And I've had over 160 reviews at this point. I've seen Bubsy, the Minions, Peter Griffin, hell, even Fanboy and Chum Chum, and this is the character that I can't stand. Not even Chloe is that bad, I mean...Chloe's alright...the only bad thing about her is that she's a full admission that the creators of this show had abandoned 'anything 'consisting of quality. Oh, and she likes to shout. '''A lot'. But no, everything in her life is absolutely 100% perfect. Everyone wants to be her friend and adore her, but she gets fairies because she keeps screwing things up and no one wants to be her friend. I'm not making things up. That is the quality of the writing in her debut episode. It starts with everyone loving her and wanting to be her friend- Chloe: 'We shouldn't even really be here! ''(The students cheer) 'Kids: '''We love Chloe! We love Chloe! -and then at the end it says that nobody wants to be her friend. '''Chloe: '-that I end up annoying people, destroying cities, and then no one wants to be my friend! It really is tragic. ''Fairly Oddparents ''was good at some point. '''Really good. The animated TV movies are the best out there for any cartoon. "School's Out: The Musical," "Abracatastrophe," who could forget "Channel Chasers"? That special was amazing! The first decade that I watched it, I didn't even realize that literally all the shows that they parodied were animated! I even liked "Wishology." A lot of people asked me to review that one, because I guess they don't like it, but no, I thought that it was fine. If I'd make a recommendation to you, I'd say stick with the first five seasons of the show. It probably won't move you to tears or anything, or give you some of the best laughs that you've ever had, but the show had a charm about it that's really hard to match. And charm is the hardest thing to give an explanation to. Maybe it is nostalgia with me, although, I don't think so. I'm pretty good at looking past that and throwing criticisms at even the most important things to my creative development. Then again, it's hard to recommend a show that most people have already seen. If you've been around for the last decade or so, I don't think that you couldn't have seen at least a few episodes of the show. I don't think that it should have been the Nicktoon, or even the Butch Hartman Nicktoon that it got ''this ''incredibly popular, but it's not really quality that determines popularity. Appeal, recognizability, charm. That is what gets a series to break into the mainstream. It's why shows like ''Spongebob ''will always be more successful than ''Avatar, and why Fairly Oddparents ''will always be more successful than shows like ''Danny Phantom. ''Danny Phantom ''is like a fine wine and ''Fairly Oddparents ''is like water. People respect and enjoy fine wine, but it's not the most accessible thing ever, and not everyone drinks wine. But '''everyone '''drinks water. Although if anything, ''Fairly Oddparents success may be...one of the more tragic things about it. By the time that it was cancelled, more than '''''half of its runtime was dark age, and that may have tainted many people's memories with it. If you were burned out by all of these new characters and how watered down the series had become, I would recommend watching the start of the show again. I-I do think that it really ''holds up. '''Announcer:' Next on Nick- (Cut to GIR dancing to "Mr. Wonderful" by Smile.dk) (End Credits Theme: "Where Is The Fun?" from the episode "School's Out: The Musical") Category:Nick-o-Rama Category:Transcripts